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AML Standards Should Be Revised to Better Root Out Crime, Says IMF
By Brian Monroe
printIntergovernmental evaluations of how nations fight money laundering and terrorist financing often do not accurately reflect whether those efforts are effective, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Wednesday. The jurisdictional examinations conducted by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and other groups that follow its 49 standards "do not correlate" with whether a country is involved with narcotics trafficking, the organization said in a 97-page report. But that criterion is a "rough proxy" for whether a nation is at real risk of the crimes, the group said. What's more, the current anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-financing of...
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U.S. officials will soon ask an influential intergovernmental group to call on its members to relax laws preventing bank affiliates from sharing data on suspected financial crimes, say sources.
The world's premier financial crime watchdog declined Friday to suspend Turkey's membership and disclosed how its assessors will begin evaluating jurisdictions on the efficacy with which they fight illicit finance.
The Financial Action Task Force is set to implement a two-tiered grading system for future mutual evaluations as part of an effort to better score the efficacy of anti-money laundering regimes.
An intergovernmental group's revised expectations of how countries should seize looted assets may prove difficult to meet, and could lower the mutual evaluation scores nations receive for their anti-money laundering controls.
The Financial Action Task Force threatened Friday to suspend Turkey's membership if the country fails to pass counterterrorist financing laws ahead of a Feb. 22 meeting by the group.
An intergovernmental group that evaluates how countries fight money laundering and terrorist financing will change how it grades compliance with its standards beginning next year, say individuals familiar with discussions.
The U.S. Treasury Department will issue guidance expanding on pending regulations in an effort to plug compliance gaps ahead of the Financial Action Task Force's next review of the United States.
An international anti-money laundering watchdog group is likely to face resistance to plans to loosen stringent privacy laws on bank data, say analysts.
The Financial Action Task Force is weighing whether to ask jurisdictions to loosen their privacy laws and require companies to retain data on their owners, among other changes to the group's standards.
Proposed changes to an intergovernmental group's money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessments are necessary and long overdue, say analysts and examiners.
Eleven jurisdictions have yet to make "significant progress" on improving their anti-money laundering regimes despite having had six months to more than a year to do so, an intergovernmental watchdog said Monday.
A report by an intergovernmental watchdog highlighting the anti-money laundering weaknesses of more than two dozen countries is prompting non-bank financial institutions to drop customers and avoid risky markets.
Gauging the vulnerability of money service businesses' agents to being used to launder money or finance terrorism is central to adopting a risk-based approach to compliance, according to a global watchdog report released Monday.
Financial institutions should search for transactions tied to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by using many of the same tactics they use to investigate money laundering and terrorist financing schemes, FATF said in guidance clarifying a United Nations Security Council rule.
The Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering watchdog, may issue a formal recommendation on standards to minimize the use of international trade to help launder money and finance terrorism, a person familiar with the organization says.
Moldova has failed to establish the basic elements of an anti-money laundering regime and Malta has formed strong foundations for its program but now needs to focus on implementing them, AML watchdog Moneyval said in its evaluations of the two nations.
In its 18th annual report, the organization that sets global anti-money laundering standards noted its accomplishments in the past year and identified new objectives.
In a FATF evaluation, China was deemed fully compliant with eight of FATFs 49 recommendations on money laundering and terrorist financing and noncompliant with eight others. In separate reports, FATF called the U.K.s AML program comprehensive and said Greeces has fallen behind.
Despite Chinas acceptance into FATF, money laundering and corruption in the country may get worse before they get better as root problems remain unaddressed, AML professionals say.